Satan and errors in scripture

Nihilist Virus said:

And for some reason his providence protects the Bible from Satan but does not protect the Bible from corruption by man. This is not sensible.

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It's not that God has protected the Bible from either (Satan or corrupt men), but that He has used their evils for His own purpose.

Nihilist Virus said:

So how does the contradictory age of a king in Samuel/Chronicles glorify God or further his plans?

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It shows that God intends to choose, in spite of man's self-serving desires and aspirations, among other things.

Nihilist Virus said:

The Bible says that Satan is the god of this world

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It also plainly describes his power as corcumscribed. In fact some branches of Judaism, on the basis of the Old Testament, reject much of the identification of Saran as such as an import from Zoroastrianism. Certsinly your understanding of him is more Zoroastrian than Christian.

and that he tempted Jesus with many great things. Jesus resisted the temptation, which is to say that he was being tempted.

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He tempted Jesus according to His assumed humanity. The divine nature is immutable and incapable of temptation or indeed change.

Satan cannot tempt Jesus with the things that Jesus already owns.

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Jesus owned those things in His deity, simply not in his humanity. As a man, Jesus was at that point powerless, starving, having fasted; as God, Jesus had absolute sovereignity over the entire world. I don't believe Satan was fully aware of the nature of the Incarnation; although on the other hand, the devil seems to have a major attraction to futile enterprises, so...

The Bible also says that Satan walks around like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.

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This is true. The way he does this, which you would note if you had read the passage in context, is by tempting us. But he has no power if we, aided through the grace of God, resist the temptatiom.

The Satan you are describing is incompatible with the Satan described in the Bible.

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It's not, actually; it is simply incompatible with your interpretation, which I believe is contrary to scripture owing to eisegesis; I believe you are reading certain verses in the NT without the context of, for example, Job, and are also disregarding the doctrine of the Incarnation and of the hypostatic union we find in John 1:1-17, Isaiah, and elsewhere.

I assume that you would prefer for me to place the Bible's authority over your own.

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Actually no, you should put thenauthority of the Church over the Bible, and the Bible over my own. The Church assembled the Bible from disparate spiritual texts and determined how it was to be interpreted. A proper interpretation of the Bible flows from the dogmatic theology of the Church amd rhe lerygma of the Fathers. After all, as St. Hilary of Poitiers said, scripture is not in the reading, but the interpretation.

I would note by the way that all of your objections in this thread seem to target fundamentalism; you have not considered the views of the majority of Christians who are not fundamentalist; indeed, the two largest communions, the Catholics and Orthodox, reject Sola Scriptura altogether.

What does it mean to prevail against the church? There were/are massive molestation scandals that costed the church

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A local church, the Roman Catholic Church. The Orthodox believe the Romans are in schism and strictly speaking we would say they are not even part of the Church, apthough we are working on ecumenical reconciliation with them.

billions of dollars in legal fees and settlements, not to mention the fact that we all now know the high ranks of the church

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Again, of the Roman Church. None of this happened to the Orthodox Church.

willfully protected pedophiles. The church has survived this, so it can survive alterations in the Bible, so your point is moot.

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With apologies to my Catholic friends, the Roman Catholic Church is not the Church. I don't believe it is even a part of the church proper, at least not in the way the Churches of Antioch, Constantinople, Greece, Russia, Serbia, Bulgaria. Georgia, and so on, are a part of the church.

Here is a better example of the gates of Hell not prevailing against the Church: Militant atheists in the USSR, whose beliefs in communism amounted to a religion, tried to eradicate Christianity and failed utterly. Indeed, in Albania, Enver Hoxha made religion illegal for nearly 30 years. Yet the Orthodox Church of Albania survived, and is doing well both in Albania and the diaspora.

Let me give you another example. In 1915, the Young Turks tried to kill most of the Christians living in Asia Minor: Armenians, Assyrians and Pontic Greeks. The Armenians now have an indepedent country, the Assyrians suecived, and the Pontic Greeks surciced as well, and some still live in Turkey.

Submitting yourself with humility and obedience to the church is a heretical notion,

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Heresy according to who? What gives you this idea? The Church defines heresy, by the way, not atheists.

and it is a good way to lose your virginity at the wrong place and time.

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Actually, its not, since most Orthodox parish priests are married, our unmarried hieromonks (monastic priests) almost always live in monasteries, and when they serve the liturgy in the church, they leave immediately afterwards. And the ancient canons prohibit young boys from entering monasteries unaccompanied.

You are supposed to submit yourself to God and/or Jesus.

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The Church is the Body of Christ. Submission to the Church is Submission to Jesus.

The church has been a hemorrhoid on this planet ever since Constantine had Rome sainted.

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The Church pre-existed Constantine, and many parts of the Church were never under his political influence or control. For example, the Church of the East was almost entirely outside the boundaries of the Roman Empire, in Persia, Mesopotamia, India, China and Tibet. The Church of Armenia. the oldest state church, was also independent of Rome, as was rhe Church of Edessa. Later in the fourth century, the churches of Ethiopia and Georgia were founded, again, well outside of Roman Imperial influence.

In the Fifth Century, the Persian Church intentionally rejected the Third Ecumenical Council as a way of snubbing their nose at Roman authority and demonstrating their autonomy to the Sassanids. I wish they hadn't, because the result was the prolongation of a nasty heresy, Nestorianism, which they only partially resolved under Mar Babai the Great a century later.

That church still exists, by the way, and continues to reject the Third Ecumenical Council.

I agree that the Bible is imperfect. I used to be an inerrantist, and the falsification of those ideas costed me my faith.

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Forgive me, but that was your problem. You prioritized the reading over the interpretation. The only real way to understand the Bible is to either go to an Orthodox Church for a year, and attend all the services and listen to the homiles and explanations given, and see how the texts are actually related, or alternately buy a book that does the work for you, like Orthodox Dogmatic Theology by Protopresbyter Michael Pomazansky.

In my opinion, the Bible is not a sacrament; it is much less important than the sacraments it describes, like the Eucharist. Why read the Bible when you can encounter God in Church? And if you doubt me on this point, go to St. Anthony's Monastery in Florence. Arizona, see what they built in less than two decades, and then get up at misnight and go to the Matins and Liturgy. I am EO, but I do love the Coptic church; going to a Coptic divine liturgy is another good place to meet God; you enxounter Him in the extreme love that exists, which does not, however, defeat the dignity or beauty of the service.

My life would be not worth living without the sacred liturgy. I love the liturgy more than anything else, because there, in a cloud of incense, I encounter God, and partake of Him.

No, it does not foretell and describe the incarnation of Christ. Hence the reason rabbis reject Jesus as the messiah.

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It does actually, in practically the entire Old Teatament. Read the appointed lessons for Holy Saturday in the Greek Orthodox lectionary (you can find them on http://bombaxo.com).

The church is promised immortality in that verse, NOT infallibility. Infallibility is the quality of never being wrong.

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Imfallibility stems from that verse read in conjunction with 2 Thessalonians 2:15 and Galatians 1:8.

Note that only the Church as a whole, assembled in an ecumenical council, with all bishops present, is infallible. So when the entire church declared Jesus to be God at Nicea, that had infallible authority. On the other hand, when the Roman Church, on its own accord, inserted the filioque, it acted fallibly; or when St. Basil the Great. who I love. declared aroma do not exist (in fairness, he spoke of the Greek philosophical idea, which turned out to be right), he was fallible.

This is irrelevant and missing the point. I'm not saying that you can examine inconsistencies and see where Satan has touched the scriptures. I'm saying that since he is clever, and yes he certainly is, he would alter the Bible in such a way that would be undetectable by us. The inconsistencies in peripheral details such as returning exiles from Babylon are likely the result of scribal error.

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The scriptures are protected by Satanic meddling by the Church, which is in turn protected as a whole from his influence.

I do however see the infkuence of Satan in the Quran, the Talmud (which contains the warped logic the Rabbis use to refute the Messianic deity of our Lord), the Vedas, the Pali Canon and so on. Each of these books represent Satanic corruptipns of the truth.

We can also see Satanic corruption in unsanctioned editions of the Bible produced by non-Christian cults, for example, the New World Bible of the Jehovah's Witnesses, carefully edited so as to deny the deity of Christ.

Nihilist Virus said:

I cannot discern anything meaningful from that

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If you cannot understand worldly things, how do you expect to understand heavenly things?

Nihilist Virus said:

Among the "data" available to you are the "facts" that Satan is powerful, clever, and malicious to the gospel, and also the fact that God allows the Bible to be corrupted. You have ignored these details when drafting your conclusion.

Essentially, reading the Bible is like walking through a minefield. Your reasoning is, "It doesn't look like there's a mine here, so it must be safe." You can't know what Satan did to the Bible, not even by intense scrutiny.

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No, the data available to both of us are the thousands of manuscripts themselves, along with rest of the historical record that they reside in. That historical record includes the writings of the early church fathers, the writings of contemporaneous outsiders who observed the early church, and additional non-canonical early Christian writings. And given that data, as summarized for me by qualified scholars, my confidence is high that the message we have now is the one that was originally preached and then written down.

You may be aware that the Jehovah's Witnesses postulate something similar to your idea. They argue that someone (inspired by the devil, I suppose) went through the early New Testament writings and replaced "Jehovah" with "Lord" in numerous places, thus changing the theology. It's a conspiracy theory, basically. But they have the same problems you have: there is no supporting manuscript evidence and there is no ancient testimony that such changes were ever made. Also, wouldn't the churches have complained if some persons attempted to change Christian theology in such a way? In sum, there is no data to support their claim. So I don't buy into it. And I don't buy into your hypothesis for the same reasons.

You need to find some scholarly support for your idea before I'll spend more time on it.

ChetSinger said:

No, the data available to both of us are the thousands of manuscripts themselves, along with rest of the historical record that they reside in. That historical record includes the writings of the early church fathers, the writings of contemporaneous outsiders who observed the early church, and additional non-canonical early Christian writings. And given that data, as summarized for me by qualified scholars, my confidence is high that the message we have now is the one that was originally preached and then written down.

You may be aware that the Jehovah's Witnesses postulate something similar to your idea. They argue that someone (inspired by the devil, I suppose) went through the early New Testament writings and replaced "Jehovah" with "Lord" in numerous places, thus changing the theology. It's a conspiracy theory, basically. But they have the same problems you have: there is no supporting manuscript evidence and there is no ancient testimony that such changes were ever made. Also, wouldn't the churches have complained if some persons attempted to change Christian theology in such a way? In sum, there is no data to support their claim. So I don't buy into it. And I don't buy into your hypothesis for the same reasons.

You need to find some scholarly support for your idea before I'll spend more time on it.

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Indeed, the variance between conflicting texts is slight and does not in any way compromise the Gospel message.

ScottA said:

If you cannot understand worldly things, how do you expect to understand heavenly things?

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What heaven?

bhsmte said:

What heaven?

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THE heaven.

ScottA said:

THE heaven.

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Which one is that?

Please demonstrate.

bhsmte said:

Which one is that?

Please demonstrate.

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Happy to demonstrate...if you can objectively position yourself before and after time. Can you do that? I'll wait.

ScottA said:

Happy to demonstrate...if you can objectively position yourself before and after time. Can you do that? I'll wait.

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And this has what to do with you demonstrating there is a heaven?

bhsmte said:

And this has what to do with you demonstrating there is a heaven?

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Because heaven is beyond the parameters of the known universe, to go beyond the beginning and the end of time, would place you in heaven...which would then be self-evident.

ScottA said:

Because heaven is beyond the parameters of the known universe, to go beyond the beginning and the end of time, would place you in heaven...which would then be self-evident.

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Why, because you say so and because you can't demonstrate this to be true?

Nihilist Virus said:

1. Men accidentally corrupted the Bible despite trying not to (example: compare the list in Ezra 2 with the list in Nehemiah 7)
2. Satan is more intelligent and more powerful than any man
3. Satan is motivated to corrupt the Bible
4. ???
5. Satan cannot even corrupt the Bible to the same degree that man has

If you admit that Satan actually has corrupted the Bible, then boy are you in trouble. So premise 4 must be, "God manually prevents Satan from corrupting the Bible."

But then why doesn't God also manually prevent scribes from corrupting the Bible, especially if we can agree that they are probably praying for such divine intervention (John 14:13)? This would not be a vulgar miracle, nor would it be the overriding of free will. I know that some Bibles will be corrupted by man - I could easily type one up myself and change some things - but why has God allowed the corruption of the text to get so bad that there is not a single perfect copy on earth? And how does this reconcile with Psalms 12:6-7?

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God, who is omnipotent, doesn't need to rely on the perfection of humans for a perfect Bible to convey.

As long as the Bible as a whole is a true human account of witnessing plus that as long as all His sheep are saved, the Bible serves it's designing purpose completely and perfectly.

You don't expect a perfect mirror can talk because you understand very well the design purpose of a perfect mirror doesn't include making it talk. While no human actually 100% understands the design purpose of the Bible, that's why all the unrealistic expectations of what the Bible should be.

Hawkins said:

God, who is omnipotent, doesn't need to rely on the perfection of humans for a perfect Bible to convey.

As long as the Bible as a whole is a true human account of witnessing plus that as long as all His sheep are saved, the Bible serves it's designing purpose completely and perfectly.

You don't expect a perfect mirror can talk because you understand very well the design purpose of a perfect mirror doesn't include making it talk. While no human actually 100% understands the design purpose of the Bible, that's why all the unrealistic expectations of what the Bible should be.

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Why do so many christians, interpret the bible differently?

bhsmte said:

Why do so many christians, interpret the bible differently?

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Because we have 6 billion human skulls. It doesn't matter as the message of salvation is rather simple to pick up.

Daniel 12:4 (NIV)
But you, Daniel, close up and seal the words of the scroll until the time of the end. Many will go here and there to increase knowledge."

Basically, the division in terms of knowledge results in the different denominations. However the division in the message of salvation results in heresies.

AV1611VET said:

Pray tell:

How is it that God manually prevented Satan from corrupting the Bible, but did nothing when men accidentally corrupted the Bible?

And if men were accidentally corrupting the Bible, why would Satan bother to corrupt the Bible?

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I love your ability for discussing ancient myths as if it comported with reality. It really helps to keep things interesting around here.

Thank you.